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by xyzelement 1991 days ago
I don't understand why Sahara and Soviet Union are on this list?
2 comments
Zsolt 1991 days ago
It's a bit of a reach: "sahara" in Arabic means "deserts", and soviet means council or board.
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Shared404 1991 days ago
https://www.etymonline.com/word/sahara

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_(council)#Etymology

Much like Los Angeles, if you translate the words back to their original language they become redundant.

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xyzelement 1991 days ago
That's wrong then. The word "soviet" means "council".. To the extent that its etymology connects to "togetherness" it just refers to the group of people coming together to make decisions.

The "union" refers to the union of the socialist republics. You can easily have "soviets" without a union, and you can obviously have a union without soviets.

Source: born in the USSR

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Shared404 1991 days ago
Good to know, thanks for sharing.

Based on what it said the direct translation was I had thought it was weird, but I figured the Wikipedia page would know more than I.

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